Tuesday, July 28, 2009

I know I did a good job and my committee chair called me tonight and told me that she has only heard positive comments about my work. She stressed that I did a really good job, above what is expected of a master's thesis and to think of tomorrow more as a conversation about the paper rather than a defense. In other words, there is no need to get defensive, no one will be attacking me.

Still, I am nervous and will take a sleep aid tonight to make sure that I sleep. I am taking a copy of my thesis to my room and reading through the whole thing once more in preparation. Then it will be lights out.

There will be a few minor changes after tomorrow that I will work with my committee chair to make. After that, it is time to prepare my official copies and turn them into the Graduate Studies office on August 4 at 11:30.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Thursday, July 23, 2009

So I had my thesis reviewed by the Graduate Studies Office. I have only 3 minor changes they want me to make. So cool! They said that they have yet to see a perfect thesis and that I did very well - I get a gold star.

Either they were being sincere or being very kind as they could see how happy I was to almost be done. Either way, yay me!

I finally finished my rewrites of Chapter 4 - well, as much of a rewrite as I know I need to do until I take a look at the comments from my last committee member. I am in the process of printing out the whole darn thing to take into school for my formatting appointment tomorrow. After that, it is back to Chapter 3 for rewrites, then 1 and 2 together. Finally, printing and sending out the final thing to the full committee. Soooo close!

As of right now, my thesis is 198 pages long. And I still have work to do!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

It is 2:05 in the morning and I am not quite tired yet. In order to stay in schedule, I would have to have completed two chapters today and two tomorrow. Not happening.

See, on Thursday, I have an appointment with the graduate studies office to check my formatting of the thesis. They have these really specific rules for thesises, something to do with the binding process. The good news is that I do not need to have everything completely finished when I go in at 1:30 p.m. It just has to look like it is complete. They don't check content, that is up to my committee.Speaking of committees, I have FINALLY! confirmed with all three committee members that we will meet on Wednesday, July 29 at 11:30 am for my defense. I need to finish all my revisions by this weekend so I can get the "final" product out to them. This is complicated as my chair-and primary reader-is out of town until Sunday and I have to mail a physical copy to one of my committee members. Please shoot me.

****UPDATE****Hey! This is my 401 post! I didn't even realize that when I posted yesterday, it was post 400. Huh, not as impressive as some of the bloggers I know but still, its a landmark.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Still writing, slow process at this point. I have until the end of this week to get everything together.

In other news, I just picked up two more classes at a neighboring college. This is a private university that is located in the opposite direction from the school I attend. Basically, I am half way between my two jobs. So I will be teaching Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays this coming semester. At least the two schools are one week apart on schedules. State school starts August 24 (I know, lucky me - Happy B-day M) and the other school starts the beginning of September. So at least I will not be in finals week for both schools at the same time. All I need to do is keep on top of the grading for sure now.

Went to the gym for the first time in months tonight. Half an hour on the elliptical. Better than nothing. I have not been to the gym since before I wrote Chapter 4 on my thesis. That would be....sometime in June I believe. No bueno. My defense date is July 29. Have to turn the whole finished product in by August 4. That is the last day to file. So tired of working on this darn thing. I have no desire to keep rewriting. Can't if just be done the way it is? I don't care anymore!

got to go, more to write. Will update on the 30 day challenge soon. Fell off that wagon pretty darn quick.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

So, still no internet at home, there is a problem with our land line that AT&T needs to fix. We have apparently had this problem for a long time but had received a work around solution that actually worked on a permanent basis. Since I don't understand all the stuff they are talking about, I'll sum it up by saying we have two datalines running to the house and one is cut. Has been for a while and we have been running the phone off the other one. Problem is, the one that was cut is tied to a closer fiber optics center and that is the one we need for the new internet and DVR that is being installed. yay, fun.

In other, bigger news, my thesis defense date has been postponed. No new date set but it will be July 27-30. I think I will propose the 28th but need to coordinate schedules with all three committee members.This is not a bad thing. A lot of people have been expressing an "oh no!" kind of sentiment. Although I am bummed that I have to work on the dang thing longer, this allows me to actually finish it and be done for sure at the defense. I can have everyone sign and turn the dang thing in rather than defending and then having to go back and fix stuff. It gives me more time to fix stuff, like typos, formatting stuff and well, content. Because as much as I have been working on this thing, the beast has not been slain yet.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

I have fourteen pages written of my conclusion however, I have major holes on page 8, and have not answered my second and third research question. Plus, I have the final paragraph of my paper written but not the paragraph before then! I don't write in a linear fashion, as a thought comes to me, I move to that section of the paper to record my thoughts.

The only problem with that is it leaves holes in the text and gives me a false sense of completion.

Damn it! I wanted to finish this chapter tonight, sleep and then proofread the chapter tomorrow morning and send it to my committee before I leave at 10:45 to pick my parents up from LAX. Not sure how I am going to do all this.

And I am not pleased with the final product. I am definitely repeating myself and will need major rewrites on this chapter. How many times can I talk about how this film sucks from a communication studies perspective?????

Monday, July 06, 2009

Saturday, July 04, 2009

So, I went over to the AT&T store yesterday and picked up one of their wireless laptop cards. (Long story, I thought we were suppose to get it for free but I ended up having to sign a 2 year agreement and put $120 on my credit card but that is a story for another day)

The card runs on the 3G, same as if I had one of their phones. The service is absolute crap. It times out and is slow and horrible.

This is why I will not purchase an iPhone as long as there is only service available through AT&T. I was an AT&T customer before it was purchased by Cingular back in the day and let me tell you, they were a great company until that merge. After that, my service got worse, both in the sense of where I could take calls and also customer service I received. You all remember how I could never take or make calls from my cell in the house.

That's why I switched to Verizon. And have been pretty happy since. There have been some billing errors in the last few months although I am happy to report that two emails per incident has resolved the matter and had the charge credited to my account.

Oh and BTW, I have blocked all features but texts and calls. So if you try to send me a picture on my phone, I will no longer receive it. I use to get them, but then they would try to charge me and extra $2.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

At school today cuz the internet is still down at home and the supposed fix fell through cuz my timing sucks. I cannot believe how much I miss the internet. I feel like crap and am having a hard time buckling down to write when I am so close to being done with the damn thesis.

I am currently reading through my draft and other than some editing tidbits and some places where I see I could make a better word choice, I am pretty pleased with and proud of my work. Two more chapters to read and one more to write.

As I get back to work, I leave you with my horoscope from Yahoo for today:

"Your mind is like a deep-sea creature. It's interesting to look at and ponder."